Three Hawaiian Princes Brought Surfing to The USA
- Editor OGN Daily
- Sep 16
- 2 min read
Three teenage brother from the Hawaiian royal family, in 1885, unleashed a sport then known as "surfboard swimming" on an unsuspecting American public.
"It was a royal sport. They were part of that tradition in Honolulu," says cultural historian and longtime surfer Geoffrey Dunn. The mouth of the San Lorenzo river in Santa Cruz, Calif., isn't a great place to surf these days, but before the construction of a harbor in the mid-1960s altered the surroundings, the spot was a surfer's paradise, with easy, consistent swells. "They looked very much like the breakers in Honolulu," says Dunn.
The Sports & Fitness Industry Association's (SFIA) 2025 surfing report shows an 8 percent average annual growth from 2019 to 2024. "Participation in the sport continues to climb, fueled by youthful energy, broader diversity and a growing appetite for outdoor, wellness-driven lifestyles," said an online statement from the Surf Industry Members Association, quoting the SFIA's research.
But few Americans know how the sport first came to these shores 140 years ago. A new exhibition at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History aims to change that. " I think it's important for us to recognize that the seed of surfing in the Americas was the result of these Hawaiians who brought it here," Dunn says.
Hawaii's royal family sent siblings David Kawānanakoa, Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole and Edward Keliʻiahonui to study abroad at St. Matthew's Military School, an elite school in San Mateo County, not far from Santa Cruz, with the aim of preparing them to be worldly and well-informed modern rulers. The brothers had grown up riding the waves atop giant surfboards made out of native Hawaiian woods such as ulu and koa. In California, they fashioned them out of the local redwood.
The rest, as they say, is history.
